IWF reports global decrease in child sexual abuse websites
29 April 2009
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has published its Annual Report 2008 revealing a fall of nearly 10% in the number of international websites with child sexual abuse content. The report warns against complacency, pointing to the serious nature of the images which are often carried on commercial websites.
The report also highlights the fact that 74% of child sexual abuse domains traced by IWF are commercial operations selling indecent images of children, and 75% of the these (some 850 unique domains) are registered with just 10 domain name registries. This underlines the importance of recent international efforts with domain name registries to get the site names delisted, and will remain a focus of IWF attention going forward.
"These websites, although reducing in number, represent an extremely serious problem", said IWF Chief Executive, Peter Robbins OBE, QPM. "The extensive intelligence networks we have with partner Hotlines and law enforcement colleagues around the world to support international action are making a real difference but the sophisticated way these websites operate still makes it a highly complex and global challenge."
IWF is the UK self-regulatory body, funded by the internet industry and the EU, operating a national Hotline for public reports of criminal internet content (www.iwf.org.uk) and providing a notice and take-down service to companies offering web hosting services in the UK. Since 1996 it has dealt with more than 200,000 reports and has over 12 years’ experience of tracking and understanding the technologies and behaviour behind the sites. Its 2008 data reveals a continuing trend in the severity and commercialisation of the images:
- 58% of child sexual abuse domains traced contain graphic images involving penetration or torture (47% of domains in 2007)
- 69% of the children appear to be 10 years old or younger; 24% 6 or under, and 4% 2 or under (80% appeared to be 10 or under in 2007)
- 74% of child sexual abuse domains traced are commercial operations, selling images (80% commercial in 2007)
- It is still rare to trace child sexual abuse content to hosts in the UK (under 1%).
The UK’s partnership approach to eradicating child sexual abuse websites is extremely effective, with content being removed within hours by the UK internet industry.
Lord Stephen Carter CBE, Minister for Communications, Technology and Broadcasting, welcomed the report, “I have followed the IWF’s work for many years and continue to be impressed by the breadth of its industry support and by the range of UK industry-led tactics to combat child sexual abuse content online which have impacted so positively around the world. Effective, widely supported self-regulation is not a simple formula. For the IWF it requires commitment to a range of stakeholder demands, public interest concerns, international political pressures, and technological evolution and I congratulate them on their achievements.”
The greatest challenge remains the global nature of the online distribution of child sexual abuse images. The IWF is convinced that only concerted international law enforcement action, in partnership with Hotlines, can tackle the remaining core of sites.
The IWF suggests five ways to tackle this global problem:
- Public/private partnership involving service providers working through a system of self-regulation
- National notice and take-down schemes to remove criminal online content quickly
- Promotion of filtering services to prevent accidental access to websites containing child sexual abuse content
- Partnership with domain name registries to delist domain names that sell child sexual abuse images
- Sharing data, intelligence and tactics internationally to combat the cross-border nature of these crimes
- ends -
Contact details
Vicki Harding, Vicki.harding@iris-pr.com, 020 7654 7926, 07796 267 250
Amit Chakravarty, amit.chakravarty@iris-pr.com, 020 7654 4742, 07940 458 472
Further information
In 2008:
- IWF issued 59 notices, in partnership with UK police forces, to UK internet service providers or host companies to take down potentially illegal content hosted on UK networks
- IWF provided specific data and intelligence to 22 police forces and agencies throughout the UK in support of potential prosecutions.
- There was a 3% decrease in reports processed by IWF Hotline, to approximately 34,000.
- There was a 9% decrease since 2007 and a 21% decrease since 2006, in the number of domains confirmed to contain indecent images of children (1536).
Support
Jim Gamble QPM, Chief Executive, Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre
“Our relationship with the IWF is absolutely crucial. Their focus on removing and blocking illegal website content is a key piece of the wider jigsaw that allows our teams at the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre to focus on tracking the offenders who abuse the children to provide the content as well as, most importantly, identifying and safeguarding those children from this most horrific abuse. This is true partnership in action.”
“Our relationship with the IWF is absolutely crucial. Their focus on removing and blocking illegal website content is a key piece of the wider jigsaw that allows our teams at the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre to focus on tracking the offenders who abuse the children to provide the content as well as, most importantly, identifying and safeguarding those children from this most horrific abuse. This is true partnership in action.”
Commissioner Viviane Reding, European Commission responsible for Information Society and Media
“The IWF should be commended for its effective self-regulatory model and successful engagement in the online sector. This approach has made it a frontrunner in Europe and internationally in this field, and I am pleased their expertise and experience is helping to promote similar success amongst INHOPE network.”
“The IWF should be commended for its effective self-regulatory model and successful engagement in the online sector. This approach has made it a frontrunner in Europe and internationally in this field, and I am pleased their expertise and experience is helping to promote similar success amongst INHOPE network.”
About the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF)
IWF was established in 1996 by the UK internet industry to provide the UK internet ‘Hotline’ for the public and IT professionals to report potentially illegal online content within our remit and to be the 'notice and take-down' body for this content. We work in partnership with the online industry, law enforcement, government, the education sector, charities, international partners and the public to minimise the availability of this content, specifically, child sexual abuse content hosted anywhere in the world and criminally obscene and incitement to racial hatred content hosted in the UK.
We are an independent self-regulatory body, funded by the EU, through the Safer Internet plus programme (http://ec.europa.eu/saferinternet) and the wider online industry, including internet service providers, mobile operators and manufacturers, content service providers, filtering companies, search providers, trade associations and the financial sector as well as other organisations that support us for corporate social responsibility reasons.
We work with UK government to influence initiatives developed to combat online abuse and this dialogue goes beyond the UK and Europe to ensure greater awareness of global issues, trends and responsibilities. We are a member of INHOPE, the International Association of Internet Hotlines founded in 1999, and work internationally with Hotlines and other relevant authorities and organisations to promote wider adoption of good practice in combating online child sexual abuse content and to promote and united global responses to this dynamic, cross-border criminality.
We help internet service providers and hosting companies to combat abuse of their networks through our national ‘notice and take-down’ service which alerts them to potentially illegal content within our remit on their systems and we provide unique data to law enforcement partners in the UK and abroad to assist investigations into the distributers of potentially illegal online content. As a result of this partnership approach, less than 1% of child sexual abuse content, known to the IWF, has apparently been hosted in the UK since 2003, down from 18% in 1997. As sexually abusive images of children are primarily hosted abroad, we facilitate the industry-led initiative to protect users from inadvertent exposure to this content by blocking access to it through our provision of a dynamic list of child sexual abuse URLs.
We strive to create continued awareness of the role and purpose of the IWF and aim to foster trust and reassurance in the internet for current and future users. Our self-regulatory partnership approach is widely recognised as a model of good practice in combating the abuse of technology for the dissemination of illegal content.
Please note that "child pornography", "child porn" and "kiddie porn" are not acceptable terms. The use of such language acts to legitimise images which are not pornography, rather, they are permanent records of children being sexually exploited and as such should be referred to as child sexual abuse images.
We are an independent self-regulatory body, funded by the EU, through the Safer Internet plus programme (http://ec.europa.eu/saferinternet) and the wider online industry, including internet service providers, mobile operators and manufacturers, content service providers, filtering companies, search providers, trade associations and the financial sector as well as other organisations that support us for corporate social responsibility reasons.
We work with UK government to influence initiatives developed to combat online abuse and this dialogue goes beyond the UK and Europe to ensure greater awareness of global issues, trends and responsibilities. We are a member of INHOPE, the International Association of Internet Hotlines founded in 1999, and work internationally with Hotlines and other relevant authorities and organisations to promote wider adoption of good practice in combating online child sexual abuse content and to promote and united global responses to this dynamic, cross-border criminality.
We help internet service providers and hosting companies to combat abuse of their networks through our national ‘notice and take-down’ service which alerts them to potentially illegal content within our remit on their systems and we provide unique data to law enforcement partners in the UK and abroad to assist investigations into the distributers of potentially illegal online content. As a result of this partnership approach, less than 1% of child sexual abuse content, known to the IWF, has apparently been hosted in the UK since 2003, down from 18% in 1997. As sexually abusive images of children are primarily hosted abroad, we facilitate the industry-led initiative to protect users from inadvertent exposure to this content by blocking access to it through our provision of a dynamic list of child sexual abuse URLs.
We strive to create continued awareness of the role and purpose of the IWF and aim to foster trust and reassurance in the internet for current and future users. Our self-regulatory partnership approach is widely recognised as a model of good practice in combating the abuse of technology for the dissemination of illegal content.
Please note that "child pornography", "child porn" and "kiddie porn" are not acceptable terms. The use of such language acts to legitimise images which are not pornography, rather, they are permanent records of children being sexually exploited and as such should be referred to as child sexual abuse images.
For further information on IWF’s governance, status, accountability, and self-regulation please visit: www.iwf.org.uk/public/page.103.htm.
